Stories of the Best & Worst of Humanity Through the Eyes of Those Trying to Save It

Projects

An independent documentary film illustrating the pressures of rapid population expansion on local emergency services and healthcare providers in a small North Dakota farming community that has become the epicenter of the Bakken Oil Reserve fracking boom. My hope is that this will be the first in a series of documentaries profiling communities around North America that have experienced similar boom and bust resource challenges, not just in the oilfield, but in mining, agricultural and tourist centers historically and presently. What works and what doesn’t? How do we find ways to adapt to rapidly changing needs? How can we access and utilize our resources in a more sustainable fashion?

This project is currently in the fundraising phase and a full description, as well as means of donating to it, can be found at indiegogo.com.

“Boom Doc: The Practice of Medicine in North America’s Boom Towns”

A series of journal articles highlighting several “boom towns” across the United States and Canada and detailing their available Emergency Services and Hospital infrastructure, needs and unique challenges. This includes traditional boom towns with economies based on oil and gas or gold and copper mining, as well as some non-traditional ideas of what constitutes a boom town. Places like Indianapolis, Indiana which hosts 300,000 people on the grounds of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway every year, or Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania; a sleepy town of 6,000 that swells to 40,000 people every frigid February 2nd.

What happens when the boom turns to bust and whole communities face imminent collapse? Some decay, some get repurposed. Learn how NASA is repurposing a cadre of scientists, doctors and public safety personnel at the end of the shuttle program.

Once the articles are in print, a list of journals and links to their websites will be posted here. In the meantime, snippets of completed articles will be posted at the end of March as blog posts. Stay tuned.

“Lady Franklin’s Prospects”

A nonfiction exploration of the repeating cycle of boom and bust that characterizes our history on this continent. We find something we want. We do whatever we must to take it. And we leave, leaving in our wake either a new way of life and culture or the decay and detritus of an industry no longer viable. This book will be an extension of the journal articles, intended to begin the discussion, in “Boom Doc.”

“The Bone Box Chronicles”

Three sets of short stories. Written on duty and on the road. Observations about life, death, work, love, people and places: The Bone Box, The Black Box, One-Top